We’ve been working during the past two years on 64–bit awareness and helping customers move to the platform. I posted some time ago, on the 64–bit Advantage blog, about the migration of MySpace to 64–bit Windows Servers. Well, I just noticed that there is another story out (has been out for a few months, actually) about the migration of microsoft.com to x64 servers. Pretty interesting read. Take a look at the performance improvements they saw – they were impressive, especially the improvement in the response time.
You can read check it out here.
In a couple of weeks I'll be teaching some of the lessons at the HP and Intel Developer Workshop in Seattle, WA. The workshop will take place on June 13-15. As with the previous workshop, in Dallas, this is a great oppotunity to port your code to 64-bit windows on the Itanium platform. You'll be surprised that it may be easier to port your source code than it looks - in Dallas we had a guy that ported his code in about an hour! Then again, we've been working with a company for about two years on the port - can't tell you who it is, but if you knew, you'll see why it is taking so long.
The Workshop has all sorts of nice perks. In addition to the quality training given by yours truly and my coworkers, you can also also take with you the Itanium server that you use during the class. You can read all the benefits about it on the Workshop's web page.
Today Microsoft announced the release of Powershell RC1. This is a task-oriented shell, formerly known as Monad. I saw a very impressive demo a couple of weeks ago at the Longhorn Server SDR, and, as a UNIX shell geek, I have to admit that I am in love with it.
I definitely love the way you work with objects and properties, instead of having to parse a text entry to obtain some information. I always keep forgetting if it is cut -c 10-17 or 9-16 or some other variation.. I can now do a File.Name on a shell script - how cool is that!!
Another thing is that it really enforces the naming conventions when you create a new command, or CmdLet as they’re know in MonadSpeak. ALL cmdlets have to be named in the form verb-noun, so they are easy to remember and you can also figure out what they do very easily. For example, if you want you cmdlet to be called get-ewis, you create a .NET class and define it in the following way:
namespace ais.samples
{
[Cmdlet(VerbsCommon.Get, "ewis")]
public class GetEWIsCommand: Cmdlet
...
By doing it this way, there is no possibility of creating strange-sounding names - you never name you cmdlet explicitly, you just describe the verb and noun that you'll use. You could still create a cmdlet with a weird combination of verb-noun, but it would require a deliberate effort to mislead your users.
And, finally, you are working with the complete .NET object model. This gives all the power of the .NET framework on the command line.
We were also told at the SDR that new servers coming out of Redmond will have their admin tools based on Powershell (can't get used to the name..), starting with Exchange 12. Servers that are currently close to release won’t support it because of scheduling issues, but we were assured future versions will. At last, Windows will be manageable from the command line - and with the Server Core capability coming out, that will become a big deal.
The press release for Mon..Powershell is here, and you can download RC1 here.
Microsoft announced today that all Visual Studio Express editions will be available at no extra cost. Up until today, you could download them for free, but they would be available for a price (around $50) later in the year. I recommend that you check them out - after all, they're free and almost fully featured.
There's also some interesting stuff being done with those editions. You can check out the press release here.